A SIX-YEAR-OLD British boy was given an unusual prescription to treat a lazy eye - play video games.

Ben Michaels was referred to the hospital after his school nurse noticed the problem with his sight.

But rather than just patch his eye, Dr Ken Nischal, ophthalmic surgeon at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, recommended he play a Nintendo DS or Game Boy for two hours a day, Sky News reported today.

After a week the sight in his weak eye improved by 250 per cent.

Ben's mother, Maxine Michaels, said: "When he started he could not identify our faces with his weak eye.

"Now he can read with it although he is still a way off where he ought to be.”

Ben, from Billericay in Essex, southern England, was one of 60 children taking part in a pioneering program at the London clinic.

There was scientific proof that patching a good eye and making a lazy eye do a repetitive task could improve vision, Dr Nischal said.

"I then deduced that a game such as Nintendo or Game Boy would reproduce a similar effect, in that it involves concentrating on small figures, in a repetitive task, which gives positive feedback to the child,” he said.

"This child’s vision has dramatically improved and given previous attempts at patching were unsuccessful, the outcome is quite striking," he said.